Prosecutor says give Simon Gittany 20 years for cold murder

Jessica Grewal
Senior Reporter APN Newsdesk NSW Bureau
Working from Sydney, Jessica specialises in crime/court reporting, filing for APN’s regional mastheads in Northern NSW as well as providing national content for the group.
She was previously Chief Reporter at the Fraser Coast Chronicle in Hervey Bay, Queensland where she grew up and trained.
Early in her career, she was named Queensland Young Journalist of the Year at the Clarion Awards.
More recently, she was finalist at the 2013 Kennedy Awards for Excellence in NSW Journalism in both the...

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Cars For Sale

SIMON Gittany should stay in jail for at least 20 years over the "cold and calculated" murder of his fiancé Lisa Harnum, the NSW Supreme Court has heard.

During day two of Gittany's sentencing hearing on Thursday, Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi said the 40-year-old had shown a "complete lack of remorse" over Ms Harnum's murder and called on Justice Lucy McCallum to impose the minimum statutory non-parole period.

Gittany, who has maintained his innocence throughout the trial, told the court he was a "god fearing man" who had been found guilty of a crime he did not commit.

His family members laughed off the evidence of Crown witness, who told the court earlier this week that Ms Harnum had repeatedly expressed a fear that if she tried to leave, Gittany would kill her and "make it look like suicide".

Gittany's legal team submitted Justice McCallum should take into account the punishment he had already been subjected to by virtue of the intense media interest in the case.

Mr Tedeschi said Justice McCallum should reject that argument as various behaviour demonstrated by his family members outside of court and highly publicised television interview with his current girlfriend Rachelle Louise, suggested his family had in fact courted media attention.

Ms Louise led a bizarre protest outside the court on Wednesday, helping supporters to hold up signs which questioned the court's finding's and compared Gittany to acquitted killers Gordon Wood and Lindy Chamberlain.

She described Gittany as romantic and caring and vowed to remain by his side until "justice was done".

The Crown maintained that the attitude of Gittany's supporters proved he was "two completely different people" to his family and others.

In delivering a guilty verdict last year, Justice McCallum found Gittany had "maintained a fit of rage", picked Ms Harnum up and "unloaded" her off their 15th floor balcony.

She told the sentencing hearing Gittany appeared determined to "maintain the rage until justice is done".